Avant Window Navigator is an open source piece of software that has been designed from the ground up to act as a drop-in replacement for the traditional panels or taskbars used by many open source desktop environment.

This type of application is called a dock, but AWN is more than a dock, as it can be extended through plugins, allowing users to add clocks (analog or digital), weather, file explorers, as well as many other utilities that will make their lives simpler.

The software is available for download from Softpedia as a universal source archive, which can be configured, compiled and installed on any GNU/Linux distribution, as long as all requirements are met. However, novices should install it via the default software channels of their Linux distribution.

Once installed, it will be available in the main menu of your desktop environment, just like any other graphical program, so all you have to do is to open it. Its default position on the desktop is the bottom of the screen, which works well for many individuals.

The application is comprised of several components, such as a task manager that displays the currently running programs, an applets manager that allows you to install or remove applets on the dock, as well as a themes manager that lets users to change the default look and feel of the dock.

It can be configured to automatically start when the desktop environment starts, allows users to change the size of the icons, orientation, style and behavior, enable icon effects, expand the panel, as well as to change the dock's position on the screen.

Various advanced settings are also available for experienced users who want to tweak the application to the maximum, but all in all the Avant Window Navigator (AWN) dock is very powerful and full featured, providing users with a drop-in replacement for Docky or Cairo-Dock/Glx-Dock.

Avant Window Navigator was reviewed by Marius Nestor, last updated on May 7th, 2014